The family of a California boy who was shot and killed during a suspected road rage incident identified the victim as 6-year-old Aiden Leos.
Leos and his mother were traveling on a highway in Orange, about 31 miles outside of Los Angeles, when the fatal shooting occurred Friday around 8 a.m.
Alexis Cloonan, the victim’s sister, said her mother was driving her brother to kindergarten in nearby Yorba Linda when another vehicle cut the car off, according to KTLA. A different family member said the mother made a gesture, after which the suspect pulled behind and shot at the car.
“She had to hold him while he was dying,” Cloonan said of her mother.
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“She heard something, but she didn’t identify it as a gunshot because no one would think that someone just shot a bullet into my car,” Cloonan said. It “wasn’t until she grabbed him and there was blood all over her clothes” that her mother knew Aiden had been shot, she added.
Leos was reportedly sitting in a booster seat in the car’s right rear passenger side when he was hit. The boy was shot through his back, a witness who helped his mother told the Los Angeles Times, and he was transported to Children’s Hospital Orange County, where he died.
“It’s unfortunate we lost a boy this morning. Our thoughts and prayers are with the mom and the family,” California Highway Patrol Officer Florentino Olivera said Friday.
Law enforcement officers are looking for a suspect. Cloonan said her mother identified the suspects as a man and woman driving in a white Volkswagen Jetta.
“We’re never going to be whole again,” Cloonan said. “He was — he was amazing, and I hope they know what they took today.”
A GoFundMe page set up to help Leos’s family has raised over $74,000.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to California Highway Patrol for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
